1999-08-25 Charter Commission Minutes (2)

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minutes 8-25-99Page 17 of 60 FELIX: Am I still enthusiastic? HIGASHI: No, is the whole system as enthusiastic about it? FELIX: Oh yes, they’re becoming more enthusiastic. ARAKAWA: In his area, yes. I would say the Pearl City Neighborhood Board has seven vacancies - 21 seats - one-third - nobody runs, nobody runs. HIGASHI: Yes, I was leading to that that I’ve seen notices of people should be applying for this thing and whether it’s losing it’s effectiveness or not - ARAKAWA: It’s not losing it’s effectiveness. FELIX: No, I think the effectiveness is there but there are certain districts, not in my councilmanic district because we have four or five people running for every seat, and they send out mailers and they do all kinds of political type things. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in my district. HIGASHI: So some districts may be strong in their belief in the system and some areas may be weak. Is that the observation? FELIX: There is one district within my councilmanic district, and that’s Waimanalo, that from time to time, has vacancies but the members of the Board can elect individuals to serve in those vacancies until the next election. HIGASHI: But they have some districts that the people are just not interested in running for office at their regular election? ARAKAWA: The Board can fill those vacancies but some, they ask their cousin, they ask their brother and they still don’t fill so you have Boards with a number of seats that are not filled. And one thing I wanted to add too, some of the Neighborhood Boards, it’s who talks the loudest so it may be the community is actually going this way but who talks the loudest and can solicit the votes at the Neighborhood Board gets it his way. Since the Mayor and the Council started this vision process, the community is saying, hey, you guys are not representing us with this vote, and the Neighborhood Boards are now having to be accountable to members of the public, just everyday actual public. FELIX: The other thing that benefits the process in my district is the fact that we have over 50 Community Associations and they are very active, and they inter-relate with the Neighborhood - HIGASHI: Is that because you have a lot of condominiums and Community Associations? FELIX: That’s right. We have Kuapa Isle Community Association. You’re absolutely right and that’s very healthy. That really helps the process. RAY: Okay, I don’t want to get too far astray on this. This is obviously a topic we’re going to need to agendize and discuss further, and I also don’t want to go into other areas this evening. Mr. Yuen advised me we really should agendize and we can bring these folks back or other folks. Okay? Any more questions on the nonpartisan elections? FELIX: Mr. Chairman, I just have one comment. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 8-25-99.html7/1/2011